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" Mobile's AfricaTown:
Published timelines of African-American history invariably mention that the last slave ship to bring Africans to North America was the *Clotilde* … what they never explain is how this happened 50 years after the United States banned the importation of slaves.
The explanation is both trivial and tragic. Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipbuilder, made a wager over a few whiskies that he could elude federal agents…
…While descendents of the Clotilde captives still hold reunions in the area, there is little physical evidence of this community’s origins, except for the bust of Cudjoe Lewis…
…Lewis (who was originally called ‘Kazoola’) died in 1945, possibly the last surviving slave-ship captive in America. "

Gary Bridgman , Lonely Planet Louisiana & the Deep South


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Gary Bridgman quote : Mobile's AfricaTown: <br />Published timelines of African-American history invariably mention that the last slave ship to bring Africans to North America was the *Clotilde* … what they never explain is how this happened 50 years after the United States banned the importation of slaves. <br />The explanation is both trivial and tragic. Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipbuilder, made a wager over a few whiskies that he could elude federal agents…<br />…While descendents of the Clotilde captives still hold reunions in the area, there is little physical evidence of this community’s origins, except for the bust of Cudjoe Lewis…<br />…Lewis (who was originally called ‘Kazoola’) died in 1945, possibly the last surviving slave-ship captive in America.